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STRATEGY

In December 2011, Greenlight for Girls took on a new continent and helped organize events in Abu Dhabi to empower girls and inspire them to take on STEM subjects.

In February 2012, Greenlight for Girls launched its first projects in India, and it was the beginning of a long adventure! In some areas of this country, education of girls is still a challenge and science and math are not the priorities so this is where g4g came in.

Our first goal was to provide educational opportunities to a select group of special girls currently living in the slums or in an orphanage in Bangalore. Our aim was to provide scholarships to enable these girls to go to university to study Science, Math, Engineering and Technology (SMET) subjects. We did this by partnering with 2 reputable organizations, the Manasi group and the Parikrma Foundation, who are oriented to this same mission and provide the needed education and opportunities to get to this step.

Today, our scholarship program continues to fund our greenlight girls in the Parikrma Foundation. Two special girls, one studying her Bachelors of Engineering in BioTechnology and another in Junior College for science, are about to embark on their first year of studies.

We also use this opportunity to conduct STEM activities in India – such as providing science libraries for the children, organizing science experiments in the schools and giving them an opportunity to be a part of a science initiative (through the Festival of Science day).

In addition, greenlight for girls is now expanding its work to other regions of India. In more rural areas, such as Rajasthan, the challenge is to find girls who are even ready for higher education. Often the girls stop their schooling as young as 8th grade which is already an improvement from recent years in which they stopped at 5th grade. We are working with one special group of educators, from an organization called NELE, who have 33 girls in their 10th grade class (the same class had 2 girls a decade ago). We hope to inspire future role models to continue their education and show the way for future generations.

Finally, on September 13th 2014, led by Aurelia Takacs and her wonderful team at Cisco, g4g reaches out to the Middle East for the very first time ever in Amman, Jordan! 130 greenlight girls + 60 volunteers + 10 incredible organisations + 4 amazing project team members = inspired future scientists & engineers + new friendships + lots of science discovery + the promise of next year's event!